


Patience

by Wrathofscribbles



Series: Soulmate AUs [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 15:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19930426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: They say a soulmate can soothe your soul and heal your wounds.They say a soulmate can ease your pain and prolong your life.But against death?  A soulmate is powerless.





	Patience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Its_only_me06](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Its_only_me06/gifts).



> **Same as ever, FFXV and its content are the property of Square Enix.** I merely play around in the sandpit they've created.

Death first comes to Noctis when he's five, brutal and swift. There and gone again in the space of a blink and he doesn't understand when his Mama falls and doesn't get back up again. Doesn't understand the flurry of panicked adults when he calls out for help, or why his Dad cries twenty minutes later and rocks his Mama in his arms. Is she sleeping?

A peaceful sleep, his Dad tells him later. A very long, peaceful sleep. Like a bedtime story, young Noctis decides, but he can't go kiss her on the cheek to wake her up. The adults won't let him.

* * *

It comes again when he's six and screaming in front of the Crystal, clawing at his skin as if he might be able to rip it off if only to let the fire from _inside_ escape. It meets him then, in the storm of magic through his blood, meets him and decides to _leave him_. It settles in his body instead, a cat watching its prey, choosing its moment to strike. Noctis, by nightfall, is _Chosen_. The King from the prophecy, the King of Light.

He cries with his Dad this time, glad to be alive. He doesn't know his Dad weeps in grief.

* * *

Death doesn't care about fate or destiny or a god's meddling in mortal lives. It cares not about the individual, the circumstance, the loved ones left behind. It cares not for the boy lost in its forest, sad and lonely with a weight on his shoulders. There must be balance, it knows, an order, a life lost here in payment for one born elsewhere.

But the boy looks at Death without fear, without anger, does not beg mercy or forgiveness. He smiles instead, crouches down to meet it, and stretches out his hand in offering.

"Hello," says the boy, "what's your name?"

To speak is to voice the hundreds before him, and whisper a wail of the thousands fallen, so Death casts around for another way instead, humouring the boy in his game.

"Hello," it chirps from the device in his pocket, "my name is Carbuncle."

The boy, the one it marked only a few years ago, is called Noctis.

And Death takes the life of Sylva Nox Fleuret instead.

* * *

Noctis flickers on and off Death's list over the years, doomed to its clutches since the day of his birth, but the fates have plans for him, too. It could pounce on his soul as it does with others, sink its teeth deep beneath his flesh and rip his soul from his bones, but... there is no rule against _patience_. It has all the time in the world to claim him, why take him so young, still? Why not let the fates have their way with him?

And so cars miraculously miss him on his daily commute to school, and the Niflheim hound keeps his blade to himself when he's introduced as Drautos, and a barfight that should end in murder resolves with a scarred Shield instead, and a drunken escape to the Citadel's roof doesn't end in tragedy when the Glaive chases him down. When Insomnia falls its prince is already safe beyond the reach of its crumbling wall. When he and his companions meet the corrupted one by the beach, that errant child barred from Death's touch, he does not kill as originally planned. They are given _time_ to do the gods' bidding, gods who do not care for their chosen one at all, otherwise they would chase Death from his shadow, would they not?

And then... _Altissia_ , and the Tidemother's wrath. A friend pulls Noctis from the water, but he's much too late for Sylva's daughter.

"Is it his time?" She asks, and sighs in relief when Death shakes its head. _No, not yet._

* * *

Ignis Scientia.

Death studies the name, sounds it, _samples_ it. There is fight in the soul, it knows, a raging inferno burning all in his path. _This_ soul makes Noctis's sing, strengthens the magic shared between them. A _mated_ pair! How _long_ it has been since Death encountered such a bond, how _beautiful_ it will be to break it.

That same bond overwrites the name on Death's list in Zegnatus Keep, overcomes the corrupted one's influence and breathes life back into a broken body as Noctis gathers his friend, his lover, his _soulmate_ close and turns his will to the Crystal.

That same bond plucks Noctis right from Death's grasp a decade later and it blinks at the man leaning over him, teeth bared in what might actually be a snarl, dagger poised for a killing strike.

"You can't have him," Ignis says to the deceptively tiny form Death has chosen to walk the mortal realm in, "Noctis is _mine."_

 _For now,_ Death chimes back, needle-sharp fangs glinting, _but he will be_ my _soul to claim one day._


End file.
